


Give Me Mouth To Mouth

by skyline



Series: Stardust [4]
Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: Hunger Games AU, M/M, Nightmares, Sex, implied autoerotic asphyxiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 14:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The arena is the color of blood. It drips in his eyes and cakes beneath his nails. He can taste it in his mouth. Kendall smiles through it, teeth stained red, because that is what keeps him alive. Sociopathic charm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Me Mouth To Mouth

The arena is the color of blood. It drips in his eyes and cakes beneath his nails. He can taste it in his mouth. Kendall smiles through it, teeth stained red, because that is what keeps him alive. _Sociopathic charm_.  
  
He steps over Kat’s body and that of the girl who killed her, and the boy who killed her and so on and so forth. Feasts are so messy. No one has any manners. Look, right there, the last boy in the line is eviscerated. Kendall’s fault. Oops. He keeps that pretty grin pasted on for the cameras, because they are everywhere, too.  
  
The arena sparkles like flashbulbs and blood.  
  
Kendall’s dizzy, exhausted, but he cannot sleep. There’s one Tribute left somewhere, clever thing. Kendall rubs the heels of his hands against his eyelids. Bad idea.  
  
Purple lips.  
  
Milky irises.  
  
Jagged gashes and redcrimsonscarletcherryrubyred. Before he did not know there were so many different shades of death.  
  
His hands drop to his side. He rubs salve across the wound there, the festering mess cooling immediately. Nothing he can do for the parts that have already gone necrotic. There is an infection spreading inside him and it takes everything he has to keep walking, to keep hunting.  
  
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he mutters to the lost Tribute. Nine, he thinks. It is a boy from District Nine. Or was it Three? He’s having trouble keeping track.  
  
The thing is that killing is easy.  
  
Too easy. The first time, it felt like nothing. Kat laughed. He laughed. They all laughed. Like the little kids they are.  
  
Were.  
  
It was only later, with the fall of night, that Kendall let himself experience the full horror of what he’d done. It rose up like bile in his throat, but puking on camera is a major no-no. That’s what his mentor said. Kendall swallowed down his own vomit and smiled, smiled like the vicious, brutal murderer he’s supposed to be.  
  
It was simple to be brave back on the platform at home, with Kat beaming at his side and all of District Four cheering for them. His mother and Katie did not cry at their goodbye visit, certain of his impending victory. James hadn’t been there to tell him to stop acting like a cocky bitch, so he never did. Kendall waltzed through training with his fear buried beneath the construct of arrogance that his mentor told him was necessary, shielded by the assumption that survival was worth something. He had a promise to keep, a family to support and a best friend to get back to.  
  
Now he doesn’t know. Is living worth the things he’s done?  
  
It has to be.  
  
Every time he’s on the brink of losing it, he whistles; a melody that sounds like whale song and James. He didn’t know it was possible to miss somebody this much. He had this image that he held in his mind’s eye for so long, the gold-red-brown of James’s hair backlit by the orange sky, slick wet and black as he bobbed in the waves. He held the dying sun in his leonine eyes, and he held Kendall fast in his arms, anchoring him to the Earth. There, in the currents, James kissed him hotwetneedy and all Kendall ever wanted.  
  
Now when Kendall thinks of James’s voice all he hears are death rattles. When he tries to pictures his face, all he sees are shadows and flames and blood.  
  
The pain in his side screamsyellsshouts for attention, splinters his organs apart despite the salve that will not be salvation.  
  
Kendall murdered the boy who gave him this wound, snapped his neck with a crack that sounded like a Peacekeeper’s gun. He can still feel it in his hands, the flood of power and then the break. He can smell the part after, too; they never talk about that on TV. The kid’s District partner came after him with a mace that caught him in the head, sent stars exploding in his brain. Kendall gutted her clean. Somehow he came away with a clump of hair tangled in his fingers, yanked free at the root.  
  
She looked a lot like Katie.  
  
His hands tighten on the trident his sponsors sent, sparkling silver in the watery sunlight. A _trident_. It’s so fucking pretentious. What is he, a Greek god? He stumbles, pitches forward to his knees, and gets up again. He is not a god, and he is no longer a boy.  
  
He is a machine.  
  
He is numb.  
  
He is nothing.  
  
Even if James is waiting for Kendall to come home, Kendall doesn’t exist anymore. And when he thinks about that, it grates, burns deep, makes him hate James more than he can stand. His only reason to fight is not a reason at all.  
  
The wind rustles the trees. A foot hits a twig wrong. Kendall slings his net over his shoulder and falls to a crouch, trident ready. Dried blood flakes from his eyebrow. It tastes like copper in his mouth. He’s almost done, almost home, doesn’t want to be home. He stabs at the boy with the dying sun in his eyes, silver prongs sinking into intestine easy as butterfish.  
  
James’s mouth falls open, his sooty eyelashes wet with salt spray and engine grease and shockshockshock, “ _Kendall_ -“  
  
Kendall bolts upright out of bed, damp with sweat, fingers searching out a weapon that is not there. He does not yell, will not yell, will not even breathe, but his chest still heaves, heart racing too fast.  
  
It hurts. That’s good. He needs it to hurt.  
  
Less than five feet away, the skin of James’s collar bone glimmers like scales in the moonlight. He peers up at Kendall with sleepy eyes. He is tired. He is drained. He is alive. Kendall chokes back a sob.  
  
“Are you okay?” James asks, voice rough. Kendall nods, uncertain that he’ll ever be okay again. James sighs. “Liar. C’mere.”  
  
Kendall climbs obediently back into bed, throws himself over James like maybe his skin will absorb every last trace of him.  
  
He thought he was over the nightmares. Sleeping next to James for the past year has helped more than he’ll ever be able to admit out loud. But he’s fresh off his first time as a mentor, and the skinny tributes he tried to guide through the Sixty Sixth Hunger Games barely made it past the Cornucopia before they were torn down. Between that and the recaps of his own Games, all of Kendall’s bad dreams have come flooding back with a vengeance. He is remembering everything he’s tried so hard to forget.  
  
James kisses the sheen of sweat on his brow and murmurs, “You’re here. You’re safe. You’re home.”  
  
Kendall catches his lips a little desperately, sucks on his mouth and his tongue. He is not safe, but James doesn’t understand. He can’t. And that’s okay, he doesn’t ever want James to understand, to know blood or horror or the way that Kendall only ever feels real now when he’s like this, kissing him filthy and obscene.  
  
James takes over. He trail-blazes his way from Kendall’s mouth to his jaw and then down, down, down. He licks out at Kendall’s navel and traces over to his side, to the place where Kendall was sliced up and sewn back together again, even though he doesn’t have any scars to show for it. He is wholehealednew.  
  
Never mind that he feels broken, sick, and old. The Capitol is all about appearances.  
  
James nuzzles his face against Kendall’s invisible wounds, grazes his teeth against the skin of his hipbone. Kendall arches up against James’s mouth and begs, “More.”  
  
“Kendall,” James gasps, peeking up at him with hooded eyes. He looks so young. “Are you sure?”  
  
Kendall isn’t sure about anything anymore. That’s the point. He runs his hands through James’s hair and tries not to remember curls caught against his skin, pulled free from a dead girl’s scalp. “Yeah.”  
  
He lets James inch his sleep shorts down around his knees, and then all the way off. They have to be quiet, because big as Kendall’s house in the Victor’s village is, the walls are very thin. But it is very, very hard to be quiet. Awed, James hooks Kendall on his fingers, spreads him raw. He licks him slippery and loose and it feels nothing like Kendall imagined. Even the pleasure aches.  
  
When he’s ready, when it’s so good that Kendall thinks he will die if they keep going, James rocks back on his heels and asks again, “Are you sure?”  
  
He is scared, uncertain, and Kendall gets that. Kendall wanted their first time to be romantic. He’d held onto this idea of the beach and the stars and love that would be a high, clear note that built between them. Now he wishes he’d let James fuck him before, when his idea of a bad day involved an empty stomach and a fight with his mom. Kendall doesn’t remember what it’s like to have a kiss that is not bittersweet. Every single touch of James’s lips feels like drowning. “Just do it.”  
  
James does. Kendall shatters around him, the pulse of his skin and his whimper of, “Fuck. Fuck, dude. _Fuck_.”  
  
The big, yellow moon casts shadows on his cheekbones, jagged daggers. He cuts into Kendall with eyes, but he is gentle with his body. James rocks into him like the waves on a clear day, too close, too intimate. He is watching Kendall like he is a gift, like what they’re doing means everything to him.  
  
It means everything to Kendall, too, and that just makes it worse. He doesn’t deserve this.  
  
His nerve endings are on fire. His heart pounds. All he can breathe is James. “Harder.”  
  
“I’ll hurt you,” James objects, hair matted to his forehead.  
  
Kendall twines their fingers together. He kisses James’s knuckles and then wraps them loose around his throat. “So hurt me.”   
  
James’s expression is inscrutable. Maybe he’s realizing how messed up this is. His thumb strokes over Kendall’s jugular, the pale of his skin a stark contrast to James’s tan, weathered hands. He squeezes, experimentally, and Kendall moans. He’s been home for over a year, and he was beginning to forget what it felt like, being so close to his own end.  
  
James’s eyes flutter shut, and for a second Kendall thinks that he is sleeping, or worse, he is dead. Dead but still buried inside of him, molten hot and nono _no_ -  
  
James exhales.  
  
He flips Kendall on his stomach and takes him that way, one hand on his neck while his lips plant kisses between Kendall's shoulder blades. James traces words there with his tongue, but Kendall doesn’t even try to translate them. There is heat like a sunburn beneath his skin that only cools when James goes deep. “James, James, _please_.”  
  
James pivots his hips so that Kendall can feel the warm head of him mimic the movement. Every thrust jolts up through his stomach, through his spine. Kendall cries out, the sound punched from his lungs, wrecked.  
  
“Shh, Kendall, you’ve gotta- _fuck_ , be quiet or you’ll wake up Katie and your mom.”  
  
Kendall doesn’t want to be quiet. There is nothing to be found in silence but the wretchedness of his own nightmares. He says so, out loud. He rasps, “Let me hear you.”  
  
James falters. He tells him, “Whatever you want.”  
  
After that, James is fierce, ragged grunts and the ruthless pump of his hips. He is an iron band around Kendall’s throat, pitiless, crushing. He coaxes noises from Kendall that Kendall never knew he could make, and echoes them in turn. When they break, it hits them both hard, and for Kendall, it isn’t anything like satisfying.  
  
James’s forehead rests against his shoulder, and all Kendall can think is that it was supposed to be different. Sweet. Perfect. He’d wanted to make it about James, about the special whatever-it-is that they share, and instead he turned it into a sadistic celebration of the pain that lives and rots inside his bones. He says, “I’m sorry,” and then he extricates himself from James, from the bed, from his house. He runs and runs and runs with ghosts on his heels.  
  
Kendall reaches the edge of the beach, the wharf and civilization close by just beginning to wake up, but he does not stop. He swims outoutout, swims and thinks that winning was supposed to be the end. So why, exactly, is there no end in sight?  
  
He puffs out all of his breath and sinks straight to the bottom of the ocean like a rock. Bubbles billow around his face, rising to the early morning light, where Kendall no longer belongs. He digs his fingers into the sediment, red-brown, redredred that he can’t get rid of. And then he opens his mouth and screams.  
  
And screams.  
  
And screams. He doesn’t stop until strong arms wrap around his middle and a hand turns his jaw, fingers stroking against his cheek. _James_.  
  
He crushes their lips together. He swallows all of Kendall’s silent screams in a flurry of bubbles and tenderness. Kendall fights him off, shoves him away. He kicks back towards the surface, lungs turned to fire. James is right on his heels. But why? Why find him in the middle of the ocean? Why chase away Kendall’s nightmares? Didn’t he watch the Games? Didn’t he _see_?  
  
Because Kendall has. They keep playing recaps on TV, and there he is, the triumphant Victor with his shiny trident and his bloody smile. He is dashing and handsome.  
  
He is a fucking monster.  
  
The second James’s head emerges from the crest of a wave, he shouts “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”  
  
“Because that’s not what you need,” James replies easily, droplets of water clinging to his eyelashes like- no. Not like blood. There is no blood here.  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“Don’t be an idiot. Don’t push me away. Not after that.”  
  
“I’m not an idiot,” Kendall rages. “You have no idea what I went through-“  
  
“You’re right, I don’t. I have no fucking idea,” James explodes. “I just watched and waited and waited and do you even know how scared I was?” He paddles in close, draws his arms around Kendall’s shoulders and kisses him. He says, “I can’t lose you.”  
  
Kendall bites James’s lip. He draws blood.  
  
James rears back, eyes wide. But he does not shove Kendall away. “You think if you act damaged enough, I’m going to leave?”  
  
“I killed people,” Kendall bites out, because James doesn’t seem to get it.  
  
“And? You want me to punish you for what you did?” James yells over the surf. “Is that really what you want?”  
  
He pushes Kendall beneath the surface of the waves, hands like a vise on his collarbone. Kendall doesn’t get a chance to catch his breath. He kicks up, struggles, breaks free for two seconds before James is forcing him down again, and again, before Kendall manages to heave him off. He puts distance between them, a few feet. Kendall growls, “You need to leave before I try to fight back.”  
  
James’s chest is heaving, his eyes bright, and he says, “That’s not happening. I thought you weren’t coming home. I thought- and I was so scared and you finally came back, but you’re not- _you_.”  
  
Kendall tries to breath, ragged, salt burning in his lungs. “I know.”  
  
“But it’s not your fault, Kendall. Do you know that?”  
  
Kendall refuses to reply. That’s stupid. Of course it’s his fault.  
  
James shakes his head, “I don’t _care_ what you did. I don't care what you _do_. I’m not giving up on you. I’ll be whatever you want. I’ll hurt you if that’s what I have to do, Kendall. Just _stop_. Stop trying to shove me away.”  
  
James has blood on his lips, but he knocks their heads together, his big hand warm on the back of Kendall’s neck. His breath tastes like metal. When he presses in close, mouth warm, it is copper and sweet.  
  
The waves hold them close, pushing their bodies together like they belong. Kendall asks, “Why don’t you hate me?”  
  
James doesn’t even have to think about it. “Because I love you.” He kisses Kendall again, and this time Kendall is okay when it is soft and sweet and light.  
  
The sun takes over the sky, and in James’s eyes it is no longer dying. It is alivealivealive, like James is alive and Kendall is alive, no matter what he’s done.  
  
He wonders if this is what healing feels like.


End file.
